If the future is a time that disappears as we approach it, how can we distinguish the future from the present? Only when we see a radical change both in the structures of society and consciousness can we say the future has begun. That change is born of the political tensions already embedded in our societies, argues Gerard Delanty.
The modern concept of the future is an ‘open future’ - a horizon of possibilities that disappear as we approach them. But, with this conception, how can we decide when the future begins? Has it already started? Or is there no future at all?
We live in the era of the Anthropocene - the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment, generally thought to have begun after the great caesura of 1945. As we look into that horizon of possibilities, beyond the next thirty years, can we know when the next era will begin? Can we think beyond catastrophism?
If the future is not the present, it must be created when radically new interpretations of the present take root. This requires a transformation both of the structures of society and of the structures of consciousness – such a radical change could come about in three scenarios: transition, collapse or transformation.
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